Sand Between Our Toes
by frozen-delight
Summary: Sam and Dean, on the beach. Tag for 10x18 "The Book of the Damned". Can be read as gen or pre-slash.


Unbetaed, apologies for any mistakes.

Written for the lovely caranfindel.

Warning for show-level angst and weirdness, plus some not entirely superfluous references to Spanish classics. With a little knowledge of _La vida es sueño_ this might actually make a bit more sense.

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**Sand Between Our Toes**

_\- I'm talking about a beach. Drinking Cervezas, go for a swim, mingle with the local wildlife. When was the last time either one of us was on a beach? _

_\- Never. _

_\- Never. Sand between our toes, Sammy. Sand between our toes._

The hot sand crunches under his feet, coarse and soft all at once, and it's almost uncanny how it feels exactly like he always imagined it.

Dean tosses his towel over the back of his chair, placed right next to his brother's, looking out on the mossy green sea. In a fluid motion he then takes off his hoodie and wraps it around his waist. Out of the corner of his eye he spots a dark patch on one of the sleeves; mud maybe, he doesn't know exactly. He thought he did the laundry just the other day. It's difficult to say, when one moment blends into the other, effortless, seamless, an endless string of idleness, if this is the first day of his vacation, or the last.

Huh. And there he thought Hell was the only place where you could lose track of time.

Shaking his head, he cuffs Sam lightly across the temple where his too long strands of hair are clinging to his sweat-bathed skin. "You should have gotten a haircut before our grand vacation."

"Jerk," Sam mutters into the pages of the book he's reading and swats his hand away. Actually, it's not just one book, but two. Because Sam is obviously too much of a genius to read just one thing at a time.

Dean grabs both books out of his brother's lap and turns them around in his hands. "You're reading _Don Quixote_ and _La Vida es_ – what? In Spanish? During our vacation? How are we even related?"

Sam squints up at him, blinking against the sun, and Dean's eyes screw up in sympathy. They really should have remembered to take their sunglasses with them. "You said you wanted a vacation." He pouts a little. "This is my idea of a vacation."

Dean rolls his eyes at him. "But we're at the beach, geekboy, for the very first time, and you haven't even taken a proper look around." He claps his hands. "Come on, Sammy, let's go for a swim and build sandcastles."

"Dude." Sam rises from his chair and gives him a small, sad smile. "I lived in California for four years." Dean senses the memories of long days spent lying lazily in the sand curled up against Jess, young, tanned, happy, hiding in his brother's dimples. He swallows and looks away.

Wordlessly, Sam extends a hand. "Come on, let's take a look." Together they tramp to the edge of the water.

There they sit down in the damp, dark sand, slightly cooler than the sand they walked over a minute before, and watch their heels sink into the ground. Watch the waves flush over their sandy toes.

Dean leans back and allows the breeze coming from the sea to stroke over his face in a rich and salty caress. He inhales deeply, smells seaweed, seagulls, salt and sun, the pungent odor of peace and eternity.

At his feet the waves hit the shore in a burbling, melodious refrain. Behind him the marram grass swishes on the dunes. At his side, Sam is talking about the possible immortality of reclusive jellyfish somewhere deep, deep down at the bottom of the ocean.

His limbs loose and heavy, his mind tranquil, Dean relaxes into the sand and lets his eyes wander over the beach.

Seashells are sprinkled across the sand, in all shapes and colors, sometimes covered by slimy, dark green weeds. Beetles are likewise scattered everywhere, tiny, black, scrabbling aimlessly across one patch of sand until the wind picks them up and drops them on another one. In between lie the discarded shells of prawns. The tattered feathers of seagulls. The occasional stranded jellyfish, unshapely and nearly transparent.

The beach is empty save for a pair of children playing in the far distance. They're dancing around a sandcastle they've erected together, squealing in delight, before a tall wave swallows up their creation. When it recedes, all that remains is a shapeless, foamy hill of sand. The children run away laughing.

Dean follows them with his eyes until their silhouettes disappear among the mighty dunes, and wonders why he never took Sammy to the beach when they were little. It should have been possible somehow.

When he turns his head back to the glistening sea ahead, he notices a golden glint in the sand near his feet. He reaches out and his hand closes around a russet colored splinter, jagged, tear-shaped. He holds it up against the sun and watches it gleam.

"That's amber," Sam informs him, interrupting his jellyfish lecture and leaning over his shoulder to take a look.

Dean drops the splinter of amber into his brother's palm and watches Sam's face erupt into a beaming smile, brighter than the gleaming gem in his hand, brighter than the sun burning down on their backs. "Thank you, Dean."

Dean shivers under the searing intensity of his brother's eyes. "It's just a splinter." It feels all too insignificant now.

Sam's smile flickers. "It's beautiful."

"I can find you a nicer one," Dean babbles, folding his hands in his lap. They're shaking faintly. Or maybe that's just the wind. "A bigger one." His breath comes out in short, shallow pants. "Beach stroll, what do you say? Ambers, shells, pearls, a treasure chest. Whatever you want, I'll find it for you, Sammy." He makes to push up from the ground, but Sam places a hand on his arm. "Dean." His voice is serious. "You don't have to do this. Please. It's fine."

Dean thinks he's heard these words before, in another life, in another context.

He takes a deep breath and watches the waves break gently on the shore, coating his feet in mud and froth. It calms him. He rests his head on Sam's shoulder and listens to the rhythm of the sea ahead, soothing like a lullaby. Sam's skin is greasy with sunscreen and smells faintly of vanilla and coconut, like the princess he is. Dean wrinkles his nose and thinks about buying his brother a more manly, odor-free sunblocker.

Later. The next day. Whenever that is.

The sun is still burning hotly into his back, at the exact same angle, as though it hasn't moved at all. Not that it should move, yeah, Dean gets it's the earth that actually does the hard work, but still. Something should be different. To him it feels like hours have passed, yet the sun is still shining down at them from the same position.

He doesn't have a watch to check.

"Isn't this weird?" he asks Sam, rubbing his cheek against Sam's sweaty collarbone.

"Our whole lives are weird, man," his brother replies easily from somewhere above him. Dean can feel the words form and vibrate against his skin.

"Doesn't it seem to you like this place exists outside of time or something?" Dean probes more insistently.

In the space between their hips Sam's fingers are tracing foreign shapes and patterns into the sand that Dean can't decipher. "There's no hunt here, if that's what you're wondering," he murmurs placidly.

Dean raises his head from his brother's shoulder to gaze squarely into his face. "How can you be so sure?"

"Look," Sam says, biting his lip. "I thought you wanted this." He stretches out his hand, the gesture encompassing the boundless sea ahead, the endless beach to their sides.

"I … did," Dean falters, staring at his brother's extended arm as if transfixed. A long scar curls all the way around it, gleaming scarlet in the sunlight. Dean doesn't think he's ever seen it before. He reaches out and rubs his thumb over it. Feels the puckered skin scrape over the tip of his finger, the texture both strange and familiar. He wants to ask something, but he's forgotten what.

He drops his hand and stares out at the sea. Far, far away on the horizon he can make out the smudged outlines of a ferry. With the sun immovable in his back, like a broken compass, he doesn't know where it's going. He's not sure if it matters.

"What's the book about?"

He starts at the words. Then he realizes they came out of his own mouth. He didn't know he was going to ask that.

"Don Quixote?"

"No." That one he's read. Or well, listened to. He bought the audiobook after Sam disappeared to college, on a whim; Dean found himself empathizing with the weird Spanish dude enough to keep putting in the next tape, letting Don Quixote's mad adventures wash over him as the highway lines passed by. "The other one."

Sam turns to him, his face patient and kind. "It's a play," he tells him. The words sound so simple and confident that Dean wonders if Sam's already explained it to him before. "It's about a prince, and when he's born people prophesy that he's going to be a tyrant, so his father, the king, locks him up in a tower where he grows up without any contact to the rest of the world. Then one day the king summons him and puts him to the test. There's some misunderstandings and the prince reacts every bit as badly as everyone feared he would. He kills –"

_His father_, Dean thinks, jumping to his feet. _Just like Oedipus_. The words reverberate in his ears, his heart, his lungs, a sharp, scorching rhythm that leaves him gasping for breath and inexplicably anxious. He hurries back in the direction of their chairs. He needs to take the book, bury it deep down under the walls of a sandcastle, or drown it deep down in the sea. If only the book is gone, they can finally have their vacation and all will be as it should be.

Sam calls something after him, but Dean can't make out the words, doesn't want to, and keeps chasing across the beach. The sand is rough and hot under his feet. He hops over tufts of grass. He trips over smatterings of shells, their surface sleek and chiseled. One of his toes starts to sting. The splinter of a shell, undoubtedly, boring into his flesh. But Dean doesn't stop to pull it out.

He keeps running until he reaches his chair, a towel slung carelessly over it, just as he left it.

Yet he stands there, staring, panting, and his heart hammers wildly against his ribcage, the last, desolate sound on the deserted beach.

For the book isn't there, not anymore, and Sam's chair is gone.

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Thanks for reading.


End file.
